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Need Advice Bad. Shrimps Dying.

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I just upgraded my 4 gallon cube tank to a 16 gallon bow front with 2 fluval c3 hob that was from my another 16 gallon bow front which I upgraded to a canister. Now my shrimp are dying.

Little info.

Got the tank setup last Friday with a big drift wood as a center piece with bunch of live plants to go with it, pool filter sand, seachem root tabs, 100 watt heater (not plugged in do to hot weather) aqueon modular led light. Use Prime to condition the water.

Added the shrimp on Saturday and spent 2 hours with a flashlight and shrimp net trying to catch the babies. Finally got them all. Plus my 2 Dwarf crayfish and my handicap baby swordtail. Added 2 cory julie catfish and 4 amano shrimps for cleanup duty. Everything was fine until I touch the tank on Monday.

My hob impeller got really noisy. Took each one apart to clean the impeller and add silicone grease (no petroleum additives) to the impeller shaft to keep them quiet. Added 2 gallons of treat water into the tank that I lost. Took some out to keep the sponge and bio media in when cleaning the hob.

After this, my cherry shrimp starting dieing. Lost 8 in a role and half the next day. Did a massive water change but losing 1 or 2 a day still. Crayfish, amano shrimp and corys are doing fine.

I have never heard of silicone grease added to an impeller. I have never heard of vasoline added to an impeller, either, tho. Generally if that is used at all, it's only on the seal of a filter to prevent the seal from sticking or drying out.

I would have checked that impeller to make sure there was no obstructions around it, made sure it was seeded down properly and made sure the filter was sucking up no air. Not sure what happened to the shrimp but I would consider that silicone grease as a possibility.

Could there also have been other chemicals like copper that somehow got into the tank?

There should not "usually" be 20 nitrates. Nitrates 20 or less is what is safest for fish tanks.

Nitrates are the end result of cycling but they are also the end result of dirty water, gravel that needs to be vacuumed and crud in the filter. My nitrates run very, very low. Sometimes undeteable because I clean my gravel, do large water changes and keep the media rinsed off. O nitrates simply means a tank that is kept clean.

Start getting sloppy with the filter maintence, stop cleaning gravel as you should and don't keep up with water changes and you'll start seeing nitrates spiking.